Das verbraucherpolitische Instrument Verbraucherberatung soll die asymmetrische Informationsverteilung zwischen Verbrauchern und Unternehmen abbauen und Vertrauen in Märkte schaffen. Bei dieser Aufgabenstellung wird vernachlässigt, dass Verbraucherberatung selbst durch die asymmetrische...

Consumer advice should reduce asymmetric information between consumer and supplier as well as provide confidence in markets. However, consumer advice itself is characterised by asymmetric information between adviser and consumer. The article figures out this aspect and shows how consumers cope...

Innovation is typically a trial-and-error process. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead-end findings. Time and resources are wasted on...

Short-lived agents want to predict a random variable theta and have to decide how much effort to devote to collect private information and consequently how much to rely on public information. The latter is just a noisy average of past predictions. It is shown that costly information acquisition...

This paper investigates how college students update their future earnings beliefs using a unique 'information' experiment: We provide college students true information about the population distribution of earnings, and observe how this information causes them to update their future earnings...

This paper investigates how college students update their future earnings beliefs using a unique 'information' experiment: We provide college students true information about the population distribution of earnings, and observe how this information causes them to update their future earnings...

When a principal’s monitoring information is private (non-verifiable), the agent should be concerned that the principal could misrepresent the information to reduce the agent’s wage or collect a monetary penalty. Restoring credibility may lead to an extreme waste of resources - the so-called...

This essay considers the role of reputational information in our marketplace. It explains how well-functioning marketplaces depend on the vibrant flow of accurate reputational information, and how misdirected regulation of reputational information could harm marketplace mechanisms. It then...